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How College Changes Students

Every year new students and graduate students come and leave SFA with new experiences and find new things that bug them when they go home now that they have from their independence from there family. With the end of the school year coming up at the end of the week students are getting ready to head home for the summer. For some students, they are happy to head back home to be with their families for the summer, while some dread going home and being away from all of there college friends.

Going to college changes everyone, know matter who they are. Everyone grows when they move away from home to go to a new place and meet new people. People usually don’t realize how much they have changed or grown up until they go home for the first time. Especially when they go and meet up with some of their high school friends and realize that they don’t have anything in common anymore. As well as a whole new list of pet peeves that you didn’t realize until you go back home.

To give you some examples from real students at SFA I went around campus and asked them how college has changed them, and if there is anything at home that bothers them now that didn’t bother them when they where in high school.

Brady Worden, Freshman

“College has been one of the best things in my life. It has taught me how to be independent, not only from my parents but from my friends as well. Since I have been in college I have got to make new friends that have the same interest and likes as I do. Which is a lot different then the friends that I went to high school with, since we were mainly friends because we had the same classes together or because we went to the same schools growing up.”

“Now when I go home it really bothers me for the first couple of day i’m home when my parents always want to know where I am and were I am going. Im not sure why this bothers me so much, since when I lived at home before they would always ask the same questions. I guess I am so use to just walking out of my dorm and not worrying about telling someone where I am going or what I am doing.”

Christina Schwedler, Sophomore

“College has changed me by teaching me responsibility. Now that I am paying for my own education, I take my work very seriously. I can’t rely on my mom to wake me up every morning or help me find my missing (everything). I manage to have become very independent and I like that about myself.”

“The only thing that bugs me when I go home is when people eat off my plate. Here in college, I prepare my own food, and then I eat my own food. I hate it when my family members walk by and take a handful of strawberries that I just cut, or take a bite out of the sandwich I just made.”

Jaclyn Bush, Junior

“I’m more aware of how people interact and how to interact with people. I’m more assertive, and I’m more comfortable sharing and having my opinion. The expectation that I’m supposed to know what career path I’m supposed to follow by now annoys me.”

“ One of the things that bugs me when I go home now is that I don’t really have a place of my own anymore. My old room has been redecorated and turned into the guest room, so its no longer my room. Also it is a pain in the butt to have all of my cloths, shoes, and other stuff is split between my apartment and my home. I always want something that is left at the other place.”

Amanda Mauldin, Senior

“College has made me a lot more independent, now that I live off-campus I have to pay rent and bills which will help me get prepared for the real world. Even if I am paying all of the bills with my parents money, it teaches me what I am going to have to do when I graduate. College has also made me a better person while being here, I am smarter and have learned to tell who my real friends are. I have also met the love of my life here at SFA and we are scheduled to get married this coming December.”

“When I go home I get really annoyed that there aren’t very may college students around just a bunch of high schoolers, that think they are all that. I also live in a bigger town, so there is a lot more traffic and crazy drivers. I have to make sure I always look at what time its before I go to certain parts of town so I don’t get caught up in major traffic. I find myself missing the college town environment after about a day or two.“

Marla Pollard, Graduate Student

“College has made me much more independent. I am also much more responsible and manage my time much more effectively. Even participating in a college misery while I was a undergraduate, has gotten me a job there and real life job experience. As well as taught me how to talk to others students respectfully and how to help people out in times of need.”

“It bugs me that I don’t have a room or bed at home anymore. I have to sleep on the couch because my sister has taken over. For long breaks at home I just get tired of not being around my friends and I miss my complete independence.”

Throughout everyones’ college experience everyone and everything is changing. Whether it is how we see the world, how independent we become and how we treat others.College is where students grow from a kid to an adult in four years or more. We are all changing, hopefully for the better.